Former US Vice President Dick Cheney remembered in Tiernaboul

The life and legacy of former US Vice President Dick Cheney, who passed away this week aged 84, were remembered in Tiernaboul, Killarney where a local family shares an ancestral link with the Cheney line.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney, is the grandson of two of Kerry-born grandparents.
Cheney's maternal grandmother was Deborah Naughton from Killorglin, while his maternal grandfather was Michael Clifford from Kells.

The Moriarty family, well-known in the Killarney area, have long spoken of their distant connection to the former American statesman through their grandmother, Debbie O’Callaghan (née O’Brien).

Debbie was related to the Naughton family in Kilorglin, as was the late Mr Cheney, creating a genealogical link between the families.

The Moriarty family includes Radio Kerry’s Sounds Country presenter Dermot Moriarty, his brother, Mike Moriarty of Central Car Sales in Farranfore, and another brother, Pat, a former publican in the area and their sister Kathleen.

Dermot recalled that on the day Cheney was elected Vice President in 2000, a reporter from RTÉ in Cork travelled to Tiernaboul to speak with the family and trace the full Irish connection of the man who would go on to become one of the most influential figures in US politics.

Cheney’s career spanned decades at the highest levels of American government. He served as a congressman, White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defence under President George H.W. Bush, and later as Vice President to George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009.

His death this week prompted tributes across the political spectrum in the United States, while in Killarney, the Moriarty family fondly remembered the unusual moment when their quiet corner of Kerry briefly became part of a global political story.